Alzheimer's Disease is one of the largest socioeconomic healthcare burdens Alzheimer's disease is characterized by progressive dementia and histopathologically by the presence of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) and neuritic (senile) plaques. Plaques consist of a protein called Amyloid (Aβ) and tangles are made up of a protein called Tau.
Amyloid plaques and NFTs are both hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. Mutations in APP and presenilin lead to early onset forms of Alzheimer's disease, supporting the hypothesis that the processing of APP may also play an important role in the pathogenesis of sporadic AD. Furthermore, the “amyloid hypothesis” predicts that the accumulation of Aβ in some toxic form is harmful to the brain. APP can be processed by α- and β-secretase pathways. To date, most research efforts to develop AD therapies that retard the progression of the disease are focused on inhibition of γ-secretase and γ-secretase and the metabolism of APP to form Aβ peptide or activation of α-secretase processing to increase production of the neuroprotective sAPPα peptide while reducing Aβ production. Developing specific β-secretase inhibitors has been difficult, in part because there appears to be a nonlinear relationship between decrease of β-secretase activity in vivo, and a reduction of Aβ peptides in the brain. A further difficulty is the low brain penetration of most inhibitors. γ-secretase inhibitors have been further plagued with severe GI side effects associated with notch inhibition since γ-secretase processes numerous other substrates in addition to APP, including the notch receptor. Additionally, a deficiency of γ-secretase activity has been shown to cause neurodegeneration and may be associated with autosomal-dominant early-onset Alzheimer's disease caused by mutations in presenilin 1 (a component of the γ-secretase complex that contains the active site of the γ-secretase complex).
The majority of efforts aimed at treating Alzheimer's Disease (AD) have focused on reducing the symptoms of AD. In particular, identification of a lower concentration of choline acetyltransferase in affected neurons of the forebrains of AD patients has lead to treatments aimed at inhibiting the hydrolysis of acetylcholine in the synaptic cleft and prolonging the level of acetylcholine at the synapse. Although this strategy has resulted in at least a partial correction of neurotransmitter levels, the therapeutic benefits have been small.
Further, AD is categorized as a tauopathy. Tauopathies are caused by abnormal hyperphosphorylation of tau promoting its aggregation and formation of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs). Since mutations in tau and APP both cause dementia, one or both may contribute to the disease progression of AD. It is well understood that mutations leading to altered processing of APP cause AD. Currently, there are no approved therapies for slowing the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Thus, there remains a need for more beneficial AD treatments. While most therapies in development are focused on altering APP metabolism (e.g. β-secretase and γ-secretase inhibition) or blocking tau aggregation, the present invention provides a treatment using pharmacological chaperones which bind to one or more gangliosidases and/or sialidases and thereby increase the production of sAPPα and reduce the production of Aβ and hyperphosphorylated tau.
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